My favorite multitool for a good decade now has been the Leatherman Style CS.

The absence of snow in these parts had made me a bit complacent — but that won’t do, so a shovel was finally bought and put in the trunk.

The older axe (who, by the way, is named Ira) has been joined by a smaller one. Still unnamed and without any mods for now, but I think we’ll sort that out come summer.

This particular purchase, on the other hand, was well thought out — it had been patiently sitting in my Amazon wishlist, waiting for a discount.

After swinging an axe all summer and realizing that cutting trees crosswise is not the most rewarding of tasks, I decided to splurge on a saw. Naturally, for camping I wanted something portable and foldable — though you could just as well throw a regular hand saw in the car, it wouldn’t be quite feng shui.

Sometimes there is simply nowhere to make a campfire, or no time for it — or you got your fill of woodsmoke yesterday and now all you want is to boil a kettle.

The next addition to the camping arsenal was a hand tool — an axe. After swinging someone else’s for a bit, I realized I needed one of my own. And on the advice of friends (not to compensate for anything) — I chose the longer model, the Fiskars X25.